Hemmington Scott sues III

Business Analysts Hemmington Scott is suing Interactive Investment International (III) for unauthorised display of its content on III's internet site.

Hemmington Scott claims that III, who provide personal finance services, obtained the information via an unnamed third party and then refused to remove it from their Internet site when Hemmington Scott complained at the end of May.

III removed the offending material from their site on Monday afternoon, just hours before Hemmington Scott served the writ for breach of copyright and database rights.

Hemmington Scott is seeking damages for the reproduction of its information, although it refused to say how much it would claim, maintaining it had not, as yet, determined how much damage the leak of information had done to their business.

Hemmington Scott researches and publishes information on UK Limited companies and supplies Internet based companies such as Datastream/ICV Market-Eye, and Yahoo UK.

Peter Scott, chairman of Hemmington Scott, said that the company's databases are "its most valuable assets, which we will have to protect".